News and Opinion

Sir Ed Davey, who was elected as leader of the Lib Dems last week, has said the party is in ‘listening mode’ over its policies. The MP for Surbiton in Surrey said the arch-Remain party that campaigned for a second referendum is not arguing to re-join the EU but to be closer to Europe. The […]

Tory MPs have reportedly breached social distancing rules in parliament with a meeting of the 1922 committee where Boris Johnson spoke. The prime minister has faced questions over whether he gave a speech to at least 50 Conservatives in a parliament room marked for a maximum of 29 people to prevent the spread of coronavirus. […]

Boris Johnson has defended Tony Abbott as being a ‘guy who was elected by the people of the great liberal democratic nation of Australia’. Asked during a visit to Solihull about allegations the Australian former prime minister, who is set to receive a trade role, Johnson said: ‘There’s going to be an announcement I think […]

Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray has said he decided to ‘stay and fight’ for Labour after it was revealed he planned to defect to Change UK until a last-minute change of mind. A new book on Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader claims the Edinburgh South MP was on the brink of resigning from the […]

Boris Johnson has insisted ‘overwhelmingly the UK is proceeding as one’ with its coronavirus response. The comments come after transport minister Grant Shapps admitted there is ‘confusion’ over differing quarantine rules across the union. During his visit to Solihull, the prime minister said: ‘The reality is that different devolved administrations in the UK, Scotland, Wales […]

Labour peer Lord Robertson has said Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard standing down would help to change Labour’s fortunes in Scotland. The former defence secretary has joined other Labour peers who have signed a letter urging Mr Leonard to do what is best for the party and the country. It comes after four of his […]

British food businesses may be unable to continue selling to the EU and Northern Ireland after Brexit after Boris Johnson’s government missed a key deadline to advise on what rules need to be followed. Business Insider reports that the time for the government to advise on labelling rules to follow from the end of the […]

Health secretary Matt Hancock has been accused of hypocrisy after tweeting about LGBT inclusivity hours after defending the rumoured hiring by government of a homophobic politician. On Thursday Hancock appeared to dismiss concerns about former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott’s misogyny and homophobia ‘because he’s an expert in trade’. Abbott has previously said that he […]

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has squirmed at questions about his private jet being registered in the US after accusations he was undermining the British system. Concern about foreign-registered planes in the UK were raised after it emerged the aircraft and pilot involved in the crash which killed footballer Emiliano Sala in January 2019 were licensed […]

Haulage bosses have demanded an ‘urgent meeting’ with cabinet ministers over fears about the ‘significant gaps’ in their plans for Brexit. Eight logistics organisations, including the Road Haulage Association (RHA), have written to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove to highlight fears the UK-EU supply chain ‘will be severely disrupted’ next year if issues are not […]

He has a reputation for calmness, but Brussels’ Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier shows flashes of passion, as he tells compatriot MARION VAN RENTERGHEM what is at stake for the EU, what the chances are of a deal, and where he believes his British counterparts have blundered. If Michel Barnier didn’t exist, the Brexiteers would have […]

International trade secretary and equalities minister Liz Truss has claimed it is ‘hypocrisy’ for Labour to attack the government over a possible hiring of Tony Abbott. It is reported that Abbott is in talks to become joint president of the relaunched Board of Trade but critics have raised numerous concerns, including over his belief that […]

The pandemic has exacerbated old arguments about the education system. Who among us, no matter how valetudinarian, cannot recall the distinctive aromas of pencil shavings, the leather of recently purchased school shoes, and the fresh vinyl of a new satchel? The three little words, back to school, have, since around the time Flashman began beating […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the great life of soviet Russian-American actress and author Victoria Fyodorova. ‘For all I knew Poludino was the world, and was like every other place in the world,’ wrote Victoria Fyodorova of the village in northern Kazakhstan where she grew up with her mother Alexandra, a brother Yuri, ten years older, and […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the story of Sacajawea. The Louisiana Purchase is the name given to the 1803 deal under which the USA ‘bought’ very large tracts of North American land from France, extending American control over the continent an enormous distance westwards. The area in question covered the whole of modern Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, […]

TIM WALKER on Eileen Atkins and how she likes to disappear into a part as she feels stardom can be an encumbrance. Not long before lockdown, I went to a cheering lunch in Chelsea with Sir Ronald Harwood, the playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter. Men always love the sound of their own voices and we are […]

Downing Street has denied the existence of a ‘back to the office’ campaign to get people in the workplace, despite plans for new social media activity in the coming days. Ministers fear huge job losses in town and city centre shops and cafes if workers do not return to their pre-lockdown commuter patterns. But the […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on the former Cypriot fishing village that became an unlikely outpost of UK garage music. Ayia Napa means ‘Holy Forest’. As the Cypriot town’s origin myth has it, a hunter found an icon of the Virgin in a cave in the woods, giving it its name. In the late middle ages, when Cyprus […]

MITCH BENN on how former TV personalities such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump should be banned from becoming politicians. Okay, how’s this for a semi-serious suggestion: anyone who’s ever presented a TV game show should be barred for life from running for high office. What do you think? I’m sorry if this nips in […]

Germans wince at the title of JOHN KAMPFNER’s new book on their ‘grown-up’ country. But, as he explains, it accurately captures the nation on which Europe’s future rests In January 2021, Germany will be 150 years old. No country has caused so much harm in so little time. Half of modern Germany’s lifespan has been […]

RICHARD CORBETT on the warped economics of European football which are entrenching its elite sides. So, Bayern Munich are European football champions for the sixth time, after beating Paris St-Germain in last month’s Champions League final. Their triumph means that every time over the last 15 years (with one exception), the tournament has been won […]

JAMES OLIVER tells the story of African cinema’s past and its promising future. Light is an under-appreciated part of cinema. It’s light – the brighter the better – which makes the medium possible in the first place, trapping the images in the camera and then freeing them again in the projection beam. It was the […]

PETER HETHERINGTON looks back at the birth of Britain’s post-war new towns to see what lessons – of successes and failures – might help to address today’s housing crisis. 1st September 1978: A group of cows made from concrete and scrap standing in a field by a railway track, created by artist Liz Ley as […]

Alan McGee was the 1990s record label boss who got an invite to Downing Street at the height of Cool Britannia. He talks to MATT WITHERS about that era, the future of rock ‘n’ roll, politics and his loathing of BBC 6Music… and London. Noel Gallagher and his girlfriend Meg Matthews at 10 Downing Street […]

MPs have been told calling each other ‘racist’ will ‘lower the tone of our politics’ after a Brexiteer complained in the Commons. Labour MP Neil Coyle last week sent, and subsequently deleted, a tweet branding Brexiteers ‘absolute sh*tbag racist wankers’ after a row over Rule Britannia at the Last Night Of The Proms. The BBC […]

A Conservative minister has stood by her husband after he claimed that coronavirus is a ‘mental illness’, but has said that she holds a different view. Sandy McFadzean, who married Norwich North MP Chloe Smith in 2013, attended last weekend’s march against coronavirus restrictions. He has previously retweeted posts describing the government as ‘globalist puppets’ […]

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has been accused of registering his private plane in America to bypass stricter British restrictions. News website Politico reported that his plane is registered in the US and, although not illegal, has sparked criticism that he is undermining the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Shapps is a keen pilot who has often […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has defended Downing Street after it was revealed another of Dominic Cummings’ recruits had lost his job for his online comments. The shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz referenced newspaper reports that a data specialist recruited following Cummings’ call for ‘weirdos and misfits’ had been sacked over comments on social media regarding Black Lives […]

Former Europe minister DENIS MACSHANE on the range of outcomes that could still await Britain. The conventional wisdom is that time is running out for Britain and Europe over Brexit. Strictly speaking, either a deal or a no-deal reversion to trading with Europe under World Trade Organisation rules – which is just a crash-out in […]

With the prospect of no-deal growing, the moment is coming for the Labour leader to break his Brexit silence, argues AMANDA CHETWYND-COWIESON. When deciding whether or not Keir Starmer has had a ‘good’ start as Labour leader, it’s important to define what we mean as good, and acknowledge that the bar could barely be any […]

Radical change is needed in the relationship between ministers and their senior civil servants, says JILL RUTTER. In 1954 a hapless minister named Sir Thomas Dugdale had to resign over maladministration in his department. The Crichel Down case is taught in textbooks as the example of ministerial responsibility in action: ministers have to account for […]

The idea of tackling climate change and using it as an opportunity for economic growth is seductive and politically popular. But, says BEE BOILEAU, the concept is flawed. Last December Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, described the European Green Deal – the EU’s plan for net zero by the middle of the […]